Exciting news, we’ve worked with our partners to bring forward go live for the first stage of our migration to Microsoft (MS) Teams. For the first stage we will only be moving our meetings and video conferencing from Skype for Business to MS Teams and enabling you to view, edit and share MS SharePoint and One Drive documents using the MS Teams enhancing collaboration application. We are now extensively testing the platform and are due to launch next week (Monday 15 June).
In preparation for this you may notice a couple of changes we’ve been making in the background including Microsoft Teams being installed on your laptop and the application available on your company provided mobile phone.
Preparation for launch
To enable us to successfully rollout the new platform, we will be conducting final testing and checks on Friday 12 June and essential maintenance over the weekend. This means from 5.00pm Friday 12 June until 5.00pm Sunday 14 June all Skype for Business and MS Teams’ meetings will be unavailable during these times and we will be making some amendments to our intranet server as well. We will try as much as possible to keep disruption to a minimal.
During the maintenance window we will be: • Disabling meeting functionality in Skype for Business. • Enabling all colleagues to access MS Teams and collaboration. • Migrating all existing Skype for Business calendar appointments to MS Teams – this will mean that you won’t have to worry about re-planning any pre-booked meetings in with Skype for Business as these should automatically convert to a MS Teams meeting. Please note: this will not affect any pre-booked Zoom or any other video conferencing appointments.
From Monday 15 June, Skype for Business with MS Teams collaboration will be live for all everyone to use. For the first stage of rollout you will be required to use both Skype for Business and MS Teams for different functions as shown below until the next phase of migration (planned for September/October):
How do I use MS Teams?
As the application is new to you, we’ve created a user guide on MS Teams to help you use and navigate the new platform. We would advise you take the time to read this guide ahead of launch on Monday 15 June so that when the migration is completed you are able to use MS Teams from the get-go.
For more information on MS Teams and how to use it you can watch these short videos:
- What is MS Teams?
- How to sign in and get started with MS Teams
- Get your team up and running
- Go to guide for team owners
- Join a team’s meeting
- Meet in a channel
- Manage your meetings
- Show your screen during a meeting
- Show PowerPoint slides]
- Plan and schedule a live event
- Produce a live event
- Attend a live event
- Moderating a Q and A in live event
- Filter your activity feed
- Manage notifications
- Join a meeting on the go
Help and support
As always, the IT team will be on hand to support the migration process going as smooth as possible and will be on hand to address any issues or questions you may have. If you have any questions, please contact the Technical Support Team on 0161 245 4777 email: ITServices@growthco.uk or via the Self-Service Portal.
Dominic Delsoldato, Head of IT